It all began Friday
morning on November 8 when Ron and I were contacted by our social worker
letting us know that there was an available child through the foster care
system. After our failed adoption we decided that in addition to
relinquishment adoption we would also be open to taking in a foster child that
was 30 days or younger with the hope of it leading to the adoption of that
child. All we were told was that he was a 1 day old, healthy, Hispanic, male
that was going to be discharged from the hospital over the weekend. We decided
that we wanted to be in the running to take placement of him. We were excited
but not extremely hopeful. We knew we would have a lot of competition with
other families that also wanted a newborn. What about us would make us stand
out as stellar parents for this little guy?? We prayed and prayed all day that
if this was the child that we were supposed to have that everything would go
smoothly. By 4:30 that afternoon we still hadn't heard anything so we assumed
that another family had been chosen. We cried and got our emotions out and then
decided we would move on and wait for the next potential child, whether this be
days, weeks, or months. At 5:06 p.m. we received the call from our social
worker that we had been chosen. We were finally going to become parents!! I
can't even explain the amount of pure joy that we felt at that moment. We were
told that we needed to go downtown immediately to the Department of Social
Services and sign official paperwork. We were given a brief history of the
birth mom, explained the risk of the child being reunited with family, and were
told how long of a process this be for us. It was a lot to take in. Department
of Social Services wanted him to go to a family that wanted to adopt him vs. a
family that just wanted to foster him. We were asked if this was still
something we wanted to pursue. Our response was, "Yes! We are in." I
guess we answered too quickly because we were asked if we wanted to take some
time to think about it. We said, "Nope! We want him!" It was
definitely scary to say 'yes' but so exciting. We had been waiting so long for
a baby. It's much more scary to think about him being taken away from us, which
is a very real possibility.
We waited all day
Saturday for the call that our boy was ready to come home, but it never
happened. By 4:00 p.m. we were so anxious that we called the on call social
worker to see what the status was on him being discharged was. We were told
that the doctor wanted to keep him on observation one more night and that he
would be discharged on Sunday. Sunday FINALLY came and we received the call
that the baby was ready to be picked up from the hospital. We got to the
hospital and had to wait a very long 30 minutes before we could meet our future
son. We were so excited to meet him, but I was feeling sad for the birth mother
at the same time. I knew that she was with him prior to us meeting him to say
her good byes. Even though she can't care for him due to circumstances that I
won't explain, I felt kind of guilty that I was taking her son.
When we saw him for
the first time we couldn't believe how tiny he was. We've named him Sawyer Theron, but this is not currently his legal name. He was 5 lbs. 3 oz. and 18
inches long. He seemed so fragile. I couldn't believe that we were going to be
responsible for him. It's totally strange to one day not be a parent and not
know if you ever will be and then the next day you meet your child and take him
home. Of course we thought he was cute, but then again all parents think their
child is cute even if it looks like an ugly potato. Due to the fact that he is
currently a foster child, we cannot post pictures on social media. Bummer...
because I love showing him off.
Keep us in your
prayers as our journey though the adoption process continues and is far from
over. But more on this soon.
Until next time...
